Stanford
University recently conducted a study that
shows a minimal number of scientists who do not accept that human
beings have contributed to the Earth's climate change have "far
less expertise and prominence in climate research" than
scientists who do believe climate change has been affected by
humans.

The
university came to these
conclusions by analyzing the number of research papers
published "by more than 900 climate researchers" and the
number of times these researchers' works were cited by other
scientists. The expertise was evaluated by citing the number of
research papers written by scientists (with the minimum number for
inclusion being 20).

Prominence
was analyzed by finding the four most popular climate change and
non-climate change papers published by scientists, and "tallying"
the number of times these papers were cited. According to the
results, approximately 64 percent of papers by climate researchers
convinced
of human contribution were cited more often than those who
are unconvinced.

The
scientists who participated in the study were also involved in
creating the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which compiled and "assessed
the evidence for and against human involvement in climate change, as
well as any climate researchers who signed a major public statement
disagreeing with the findings of the panel's report."

In
addition, the university's team of scientists decided on who the top
100 climate researchers are by determining the "total number of
climate-related publications each had." According to Anderegg,
97 percent of those in the top 100 agree with and/or endorse the
IPCC's assessment. He also says that this result has been "borne
out" by other studies that use different methodology.

"We
really wanted to bring the expertise dimension into this whole
discussion," said Anderegg. "We hope to put to rest the
notion that keeps being repeated in the media and by some members of
the public that 'the scientists disagree' about whether human
activity is contributing to climate change."

The
scientists at Stanford have mentioned that they are ready to take
some heat from doubters of anthropogenic, or human-affected, climate
change who "object to their data." But according to Stephen
Schneider, a professor of biology and a coauthor of the paper
in Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences, the
team "took pains to avoid any sort of prejudice or skewed data
in their analysis." When selecting researchers for the study who
either disagreed
with statements of the IPCC or signed the petitions, the
Stanford team was sure to stay completely neutral in the study by
omitting "those who had no published papers in the climate
literature."

Schneider
says that despite the careful analysis of this study, skeptics of
human-affected climate change will "claim foul" anyway, and
will say that climate researchers who are onboard with the idea of
anthropogenic climate change are "just trying to deny
publication of the doubters' opinion," but he challenges them to
"go out and do a study to prove it -- it is of course not true."

"I
think the most typical criticism of a paper like this -- not
necessarily in academic discourse, but in the broader context -- is
going to be that we haven't addressed these sorts of differences
could be due to some clique or, at the extreme, a conspiracy of the
researchers who are convinced of climate change," Anderegg
said.

"When
you stop to consider whether some sort of 'group think' really
drives these
patterns and it could really exist in science in general,
the idea is really pretty laughable," he said. "All of the
incentives in science are exactly the opposite."

This
Stanford study is the first of its kind to address the issue of
scientists' opinions of human-affected climate change, and what their
level of expertise and prominence in the field is.

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I disagree, Obama has been very open about our standard of living declining sharply in order to go green. He has said that electricity rates would 'necessarily skyrocket' in response to legislation he wants in order to reduce emissions, with the idea that coal power plants would be forced out of business. That and he's also implied that we Americans use too much energy by comparing the per-capita energy usage rate to the rest of the world.

No, what's being suggested here is that green tech not leave the lab until they've figured out how to make it cheap enough to both reduce energy usage AND increase standard of living. The CFL example is actually a pretty good example (long term they save money).

As the climate changes gradually, we'll adapt. I actually suspect that if the earth warms a few degrees and doubles, quadruples, or whatever, the CO2 PPM then our standard of living will actually get better. I'm just basing that on what scientists have told us about the earth's past, when CO2 was ten times what it is today and the earth was REALLY green (in comparison to today).

That doesn't really address your point though. There are plenty of ways that I could die today. I could be ambushed and killed by ninjas. Does that mean I should focus 100% of my energy on learning to combat ninjas? No. Mainly because although it's a possibility, I really, REALLY don't think I'll be ambushed by ninjas today (or any day for that matter). Likewise, I don't think a little CO2 being re-introduced (not introduced) into the atmosphere is going to spell the end of life on earth as we know it.

"Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally. I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine." -- Bill Gates